You didn’t need to climb to the top of the grandstand on 18 to see it. In the distance was a blur of bodies – a mass of humanity fixated on emptying their wallets.
The Spectator Village felt the best part of a mile away from where I was sitting. It’s perched on the side of the 13th fairway where Jordan Spieth played one of The Open’s most iconic shots the last time the world’s oldest major was here.
But that’s just a memory and this is a very different beast from the championship that came to Southport in 2017.
Now it’s capitalism at its finest – a mix of corporate and commerciality to match any of its big sporting rivals.
There is an argument that this is how it should be. The Open isn’t blazers and G&Ts anymore. It’s a huge event and what’s going on off course should mirror the marvels of what happens on it.
Three will be record crowds at crowds at Royal Birkdale this week. Some 300,000 are expected to come through the gates before the end of Sunday and The Open’s growth is showing no signs of slowing down.
It wasn’t that long ago you could pitch up on the day and buy a ticket. How that has changed.
Mark Darbon, the R&A’s chief executive, revealed in his pre-tournament press conference that there have already been 750,000 ballot applications for next year’s 155th Open at St Andrews.
What would Old Tom Morris make of that? I think if it got people into his shop, he’d have called in all hands for help.
Darbon has previously said there isn’t a target in mind for spectator numbers at The Open but has also stressed the championship’s rampant growth is a “delicate balance”.
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“The one thing we want to do, of course, is protect the spectator experience, and we want to manage our crowd sensitively around these wonderful golf courses,” he added.
“Birkdale is a great location for us in terms of that logistical setup to transport and travel links, as well as now given some of the changes of the course, the routes around the golf course that facilitate that movement.”
But is that how it feels on the ground at Royal Birkdale? Can you barely see a golfer’s swing for rows of heads? Does the bar look like England have got a World Cup reprieve?
I went out onto the golf course, watching the action, visiting the shop along with the food concerns, to see if it was a flowing or frustrating experience on the opening day of The Open.
Can you get a good view of the golf?
This is all about expectation. If you are intent on getting as close as possible to Rory McIlroy then you’ve simply got to accept that a significant number of your fellow spectators are going to have the same idea. There may be limited viewing.
Royal Birkdale feels like a very good fan friendly layout. There’s raised tees, dunes aplenty, and the course – at least in how it walks – feels quite spacious. There’s a fair bit of scale to it, even if some areas require getting up and down a lot of humps.
Plenty of you will have your view on the course changes. It still feels very weird to me that the old 14th green, which played host to that incredible Open shot in 2017 when Spieth nearly aced the par 3 to start that momentous comeback, has been turned into a Swingzone.
But the new 14th fans out and it’s quite easy to view a tee shot and approach. The mounding that reaches up towards the left of the green at the 15th has surely been designed with spectators at the forefront and it is very effective at giving hundreds of people a decent view.
It was here I spent half an hour walking with the Fleetwood, Rahm, Spieth group and despite the haughty exhortations for the home favourite, there was never any danger of not seeing a shot from the trio.
Back up at the 13th and Matt Wallace was playing the hole in front of a half empty grandstand and a gentle throng. Even in the 18th grandstand – the scene of many a long Open wait – there were seats galore and barely a queue to enter when I perched there at 1.30pm.
I’m sure some of you may have experienced something different – particularly when the big guns came up the stretch – but that is not an indicator the course is too crowded. It’s simply a case of supply and demand.
The Shop
‘We’re in another queue’, said the woman who ramped up behind me in the labyrinth of lines that led the way to The Shop.
I think I added another 1,000 steps winding towards the door but previous visits have told me that every barrier is necessary.
Experience over many years has shown later is better when it comes to visiting The Shop but that comes with risks. What you want might be gone and you might not have been in time for a re-stock.
The Shop is not quite on the scale of the Masters, where I feared people were about to remortgage their homes to add another logo encrusted hoodie to their baskets, but it clearly does a very sharp trade.
And what there is of the queue when I am there moves briskly too. I’m through the long and winding road and into the reams of merchandise in just over eight minutes.
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Timing here is everything. You might not be able to bag a Malbon hoodie at a big price if you don’t want to be first in line, but you won’t spend 30 minutes baking in the sun either.
The Open Arms
If I was expecting a hold up, it was here. Not even £8 a pint can dampen the enthusiasm of the masses for a cooling ale – or several – on a hot day and I approached the line in the big bar at the Spectator’s Village expecting the worst.
It was 10 people deep, but they run this place like a military operation. I’d have thought 3pm in 28 degrees was prime time for a beer but I went from the back of the queue to having a plastic glass in my hand in just over 10 minutes.
And while I was in that twilight zone between lunch and dinner, even the food stalls weren’t especially rammed. The longest queue was for fish and chips, but I could have rocked up and got a burger in minutes. The ice cream vans? Now that was a different story.
So is The Open getting too big?
There is obviously context here. They are playing in 52 games, from 6.30am until around 10pm, over the first two days and the crowds just naturally spread about when there is that much golf on the go. People arrive and leave as they please during the first couple of rounds.
When the field is halved on Friday night, those numbers will naturally compress. And when the Claret Jug is on the line on Sunday, everyone will want to be where the action is. That will obviously make viewing more difficult.
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Birkdale is probably as good a place as any to have big numbers. Lots of holes back onto each other and the topography favours the viewer. The Open’s expansionist aims will be put under a much bigger microscope at St Andrews next year – a traditional in and out links where fans are stuck to the edges.
It may be the Home of Golf but it’s a tough course in terms of what the fans can see. But, for now, the balance still feels intact. The Open may be massive, but it remains the best week in golf.
Now have your say
What do you think? Is The Open getting too big? Did you have the same experience as Steve or was it very different? Let us know in the comments or get in touch on X.
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